Director: Marc Webb
Year Released: 2014
Rating: 1.5
The by-the-numbers reboot continues: in part two of what is bound to be a never-ending rehash of Spidey movies has Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) facing up against a disgruntled Oscorp employee (Jamie Foxx) - who turns into a mass of electricity after being devoured by eels - and the head of Oscorp, Harry (Dane DeHaan), who is dying of a genetic disease and needs some super serum to keep him ticking. While the Times Square sequence is visually impressive - and much of the CGI is (going by 2014 standards) very good - the heavy use of contrivances, atrociously 'hip' dialogue and the attempt to create an emotionally strong connection between Parker and his girlfriend Gwen (Emma Stone) - merely to dispatch with her at the end (the same way it killed off her father, played by Denis Leary, in the first one) - make it an artificial, infantile enterprise. They keep mass-producing these rote comic book movies (and people keep going to see them) because I think watching some make-believe world of superpowers and whatnot are easier to digest than actual real-world problems.
